Proverbs 16:18 / 1 Timothy 3:6-7
Aim: to warn against the sin of pride.
Thesis: if pride can damn a spiritual being as powerful, and as close to God, as an angel – think what it will do to us!
Introduction:
A couple of weeks ago in my sermon I described the aggressiveness of atheists who are vigorously promoting their unbelief. The next day Jamie Gunter e-mailed me the following story:
There was a little old lady who stepped onto her front porch every morning, raised her arms to the sky, and shouted: “PRAISE THE LORD!”
An atheist moved into the house next door. He soon became irritated at the lady’s declarations of faith, so every morning he’d step onto his front porch after her and defiantly yell back: “THERE IS NO LORD!”
Time passed with the two of them carrying on this way every day.
One morning, in the middle of winter, the little old lady stepped onto her front porch and shouted: “PRAISE THE LORD! Please Lord, I have no food and I am starving, provide for me, oh Lord!”
The atheist saw this as his golden opportunity to teach this lady a lesson – to really rub it in! The next morning she stepped out onto her porch and there were two huge bags of groceries sitting there.
“OH, PRAISE THE LORD!” she cried out joyfully. “HE HAS PROVIDED GROCERIES FOR ME!” The atheist neighbor jumped out of the hedges where he had been hiding and shouted in triumph: “You see, I told you there is no Lord. I BOUGHT THOSE GROCERIES!!”
In response the little old lady threw her arms into the air and shouted: “PRAISE THE LORD! HE HAS NOT ONLY PROVIDED ME WITH GROCERIES BUT HE EVEN MADE THE DEVIL PAY FOR THEM!”
To begin our sermon this morning we’ll turn to two sources: Solomon and Anthony Smith. Solomon, of course, was the third king of Israel and the wisest man of his day. Anthony Smith is the second-year free safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he is…….decidedly less bright.
Why do I say that? Well, for those of you who aren’t NFL fans, last Sunday the Steelers took on the New England Patriots, and before the game Anthony Smith publicly boasted that he and his team would crush the Patriots. In fact, he guaranteed their defeat. More than that, Smith dared the Patriots receivers to take him on.
• Now, it has always been foolhardy to presumptuously boast about something you haven’t yet done. In fact, there was a saying among the soldiers of Israel – “One who puts ON his armor should not boast like one who takes it OFF.” – 1 Kings 20:11
• And any experienced coach will tell you, in sports it is never smart to make a statement that provides your opponent with even more motivation than he already has!
• But it is particularly ill-advised to taunt a team that is 12-0!
The Patriots took Anthony Smith up on his dare: their offense targeted him all day long, and Tom Brady lit him up like a Christmas tree. By the end of the day the Patriots were 13-0 and Anthony Smith had received an embarrassing lesson, one this young man could have learned much easier if only he had listened to Solomon in Proverbs 16:18:
“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
The example of Anthony Smith reminds me of a memorable expression once used by a Texan to describe an acquaintance with an over-inflated ego: he said the man was forever trying to fit a ten-gallon hat on an eleven-gallon head! [Source: www.christianitytoday.com/leaders/newsletter/2002/cln21003.html)
This morning we will begin to consider the perilous pitfall of PRIDE. TURN to the book of 1 Timothy, Chapter 3. All this fall we have been exposing the Devil’s schemes, those diabolical traps set by Satan to trip us up and destroy us spiritually. The theme of this series is taken from 2 Corinthians 2:11, where Paul says we don’t have to allow Satan to “outwit” us, because we are aware of his “schemes.” There is no scheme more fundamental to the Devil’s game plan than the temptation of PRIDE. Pride is one of the “big three” listed in 1 John 2:16 “The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the PRIDE of life.”
Are you in 1 Timothy 3? Here the apostle Paul is providing instructions to a young evangelist on how to appoint elders and deacons. He begins the chapter by listing the qualities Timothy should look for in men who are being considered for the ministry of shepherding.
READ Verses 6-7 “He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.”
The relevance of this passage to leadership candidates is obvious: shepherding the souls of God’s flock requires patience, and understanding, and humility – so you want a man in that position who has been a Christian long enough to have grown spiritually, someone who has the heart of a servant, who has the humility to understand that leadership is a responsibility, not a privilege or point of pride.
A recent convert (Greek neophytos – a “neophyte”: i.e., a beginner or novice) would be in over his head, because he simply hasn’t had the seasoning, the ministry experience, necessary to have developed maturity. And Paul describes an unhealthy dynamic that can occur if a new convert is placed in a position of authority: instead of being humbled by the responsibility of leadership, an immature person will become more proud. Thus the formula: AUTHORITY without MATURITY = DISASTER!
Simon Peter warns against this risk of mishandling authority by becoming arrogant in 1 Peter 5:3 when he tells shepherds not to “lord it over” the flock. When that happens a terrible inversion takes place: rather than pointing disciples to JESUS as their Lord, conceited and controlling elders want to BE “lord” over God’s flock!
That’s the context, but this morning we are particularly interested in a specific phrase in verse 6: if such a man became “conceited” Paul warns he would “fall under the same judgment as the devil.”
That enigmatic phrase transports us to the unseen world, all the way back to the shadowy origins of evil itself. I must confess right up front there is much we are not told about the nature of Satan, and I believe that omission is intentional. “Secret things belong to the Lord our God,” Deuteronomy 29:29 tells us, “but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”
In other words, the Bible was not written for our curiosity, but for our obedience: we may not have all that we WANT to know, but the Lord has revealed all that we NEED to know in order to serve him.
Moreover, I believe God has not chosen to fully disclose Satan’s past because He realized there would always be some individuals who would have an unhealthy fascination with the Prince of Darkness.
While I may not be able to completely satisfy everyone’s curiosity about the Devil, I can tell you where he went wrong, and more importantly, I can tell you what it means to you and me today.
TURN to Ezekiel, Chapter 28. READ Verses 1-5 “The pride of your heart….your heart has grown proud”
Tyre was an island kingdom north west of Israel – “it belonged to the Phoenicians, and was without doubt one of the richest, most luxurious, most powerful and most arrogant of the great kingdoms of the day.” (Michael Green, Exposing The Prince of Darkness, p. 36-37)
READ Verses 11-19 Who is this talking about? The prince and king of Tyre (verses 2, 12)! But…..in order to illustrate the enormity of their pride, the prophet Ezekiel paints a very unusual poetic picture, with phrases that cannot possibly refer to any human king.
Is this describing the origins of Satan? It is always dangerous to base doctrine on a passage of poetry, but consider this corroborating evidence. TURN back one book to Isaiah, Chapter 14.
READ Verses 12-15 Again, we have a prophet taunting a human ruler (the king of Babylon) – but once again, the imagery seems to be appropriated from a judgment against one more sinister.
• I can tell you that God is the creator of all things – material and spiritual – but He is not the source of any evil, so something turned Satan’s heart away from obedience to His rightful Master.
• I can tell you that Revelation 12 pictures a great battle scene between Michael and his angels and the devil and his angels, and Satan was cast out of heaven.
• I can tell you that Paul has already said in 1 Timothy 3:6 that PRIDE is what brought judgment on the devil.
• I can tell you that when Jesus was tempted by the devil in the desert, it is highly revealing that one of the requests of Satan was “Bow down and worship ME” (Matthew 4:9).
• I can tell you that Satan has an implacable desire to prevent any person from following Jesus, and such a fierce motivation must spring from a very deep fury, indeed!
Could it be that Satan’s rebellion springs from an arrogant desire to receive the attention, the adulation, the adoration that rightly belongs to Jesus, the Son of God? Could it be that in his pride the Devil is jealous of the worship Christ receives, veneration that he believes rightfully should have been his?
Conclusion:
This much we know: It was PRIDE that brought judgment on Satan.
And this we should take to heart: If pride can damn a spiritual being as powerful, and as close to God, as an angel – think what it will do to US! We should beware of letting our ego get out of hand, lest we, too, get an “11-gallon head”!
We will consider the implications of this in a future lesson, and learn how to resist this scheme of Satan, but for now, here is one last story:
In 2006, a New York city judge allowed Jose Luis Espinal to legally change his name to Jesus Christ. Following the decision, Espinal said he was “happy” and “grateful” that the judge approved the change. He also said that he was moved to seek the name change about a year prior to the decision, when it dawned on him that, “I am the person that is that name.”
Samuel Maull, “Judge Lets Man Change Name to Jesus Christ,” Breitbart.com (12-23-05); submitted by David Slagle, Atlanta, Georgia
We may be amused or appalled at the arrogance of Jose, but haven’t we all wanted to be our own Lord from time to time?
How about you? Are you tired of trying to “play God”? Are you willing to let HIM be in charge? If so, then hear the voice of Scripture:
“God opposes the proud, but give grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” – James 4:6-10
Dan Williams